Well, this certainly has everything that makes a Neil Gaiman book a Neil Gaiman book. There are gods, weird things happening to apparently ordinary people, and interesting enough characters. But... It's my understanding that Gaiman actually wrote this book before American Gods, and it shows, and just from the way it reads, it has to be one of his earliest works. There's none of the lyrical prose that comes in the later stories, none of the quiet irony that gives flavor to his later worlds. Oh, there's still plenty of irony, it's just the kind that clubs you over the head to make sure you noticed it there.

Not being African, or even African-American, I can't say if how these gods/legends were treated were accurate or not. Anansi is a trickster, that much is clear, but I'm not sure about the others. Since this is Gaiman, I have no doubt the man did his homework and approached this with nothing but love for the material.

The one thing that really rubbed me the wrong way was Rosie. There's an unfortunate bit of non-con here. Since Spider is a trickster and is used to just mind-whammying people into doing or believing whatever he wants, the earlier stuff with him and Rosie was only to be expected. I guess of all it was really to be expected but I didn't like how

Spider mind-whammying Rosie into sleeping with him, when she was so set on remaining a virgin until her marriage to Charlie, was treated in the text. This is non-con, people. Yes, Rosie slaps him when she finds out and breaks up with him and Charlie as a result, but there wasn't the level of fury there I'd expected from her. Just one slap? And then she goes on immediately to tell her mother that she's in love with Spider (due to the mind-whammy, no doubt) and even later goes on to get back together with Spider. The non-con/rape is never brought up again, and while it's good that Spider stopped mind-whammying her, it was just never really addressed to my satisfaction.

So yeah...I can't really recommend this one on the strength of Gaiman's later works. It was entertaining enough, to a point, and certainly interesting - though I figured out the "twist" pretty early on and thought that was drawn out a little too long. Still, if you like fantasy, and particularly mythology that's not usually covered in most Western literature, then this is certainly worth a perusal.